


Condescending to Earth

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-12 00:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It rains differently in the Pegasus galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Condescending to Earth

It rains differently in the Pegasus galaxy. John’s been all over Earth, every continent that spreads out flat and brown against the shifting blue of her seas; there are a thousand and one ways for it to rain on Earth and not one of those is as fine, or as hard, or as _wrong_ as the way it does here.

It’s something about the pattern of the droplets, stuttering and restarting like a motor gone bad, when they’re hard enough to actually break open, iridescent and glistening against the graceful curve of Atlantis’ arms.

John leans back against his bed. Everything’s shut down, mostly, even the damned labs. It’s a point of contention among the expedition that when the soldiers get a day off, the scientists never do. Of course, most of the scientists wouldn’t know what to do with a day off if it rose up, snarling and hairy, out of a dark, shadowed corner of their labs. They’re scientists: they work until the experiment’s done, until the knowledge they're after is found, thirst quenched just in time for some new hunger, new question, new need to pop up and distract them. They don’t _do_ vacations. Their work is too important to take a break and see the sun for the first time in a week.

It’s disturbing to him that even in his most meandering thoughts, he’s practically quoting.

Elizabeth’s familiar with scientists the way John isn’t. Instead of mandating a day here or there that they _can’t_ be in their so-precious labs, instead she arranges games. Tournaments of chess. Orgies of Risk. Entire floors of various role playing games John tries very hard not to learn the names of, in case he slips in front of his men. She’s asked for suggestions on these Game Days, and almost every one is implemented—like Ronon and a bevy of scientists in the kitchens, doing something arcane that may or may not result in tonight’s dinner. They’ve promised to clean the walls afterward, at least.

 _“You can’t order a scientist to do anything,” Elizabeth says, straight and narrow and as focused as a laser, sitting perfectly in her chair. She’s always in her chair when John goes to visit her, like she needs the protection of her desk, the trappings of metal and fabric to give her words enough weight. Or maybe she just hates the way he slouches, loose and easy, a challenge to her more regal tension. “They’re contrary creatures, John, and if they’re_ here _then they’ve got a work ethic that’s borderline insane.”_

_“Are you saying my men don’t have a work-ethic?” He’s teasing, mostly because playing up the military always flusters Elizabeth. The truth is, of course his men have a work ethic; they wouldn’t be here if they didn’t. The only difference was his men played as hard as they worked, while a scientist spent most of his days playing and called _that_ work. John’s understood that from the beginning, but he doesn’t think Elizabeth does._

_“Of course not,” she stutters, looking cornered and flustered—and then annoyed. One day, she’s going to be drunk enough to actually give him the head-slap that lurks in the twist of her lips and the twitch of her fingers. John’s planning on bringing the booze. “John. If we provide enough distractions, hopefully most of them will take it. The ones that won’t, well. I’ve got both Rodney and Radek looking for cases of burnout, just in case.”_

Actually, John’s got a few of his men doing the same thing. One of his men going off the deep end is going to involve a choreographed stand off, or someone screaming AWOL on this planet or any other. He hasn’t forgotten Ford’s lessons, and he’s got measures in place should something happen. Again. The scientists, however—when they go, they can flare as brightly as any supernova, mushroom shaped stress that will leave the kind of destruction one man with a gun can hardly comprehend, let alone compare to. Scientists _think_ , using their wily brains to twirl imaginary mustaches, fear and heartbreak transmuting into the kind of terrifying giggles that come in place of sobs.

He’s fortunate that most of his senior officers understand that. They’re all SGC veterans of some caliber, and they’ve already learned the lessons it’s taken John a year or more to figure out. Their job is to protect the scientists, period. It doesn’t matter how proactive they need to be against the Wraith or whatever else rears it’s hand-stabbing head. The military is here to make sure the brains that save the day over and over are there to do the saving.

Even if it’s from themselves.

Which leads him back to why he’s here, hiding from the rain and the parties he knows are springing up like dandelions throughout Atlantis, fun-starved and greedy. Base Commanders aren’t welcome to the kind of events John wants to go to. It’s the one thing he regrets about his commission: he’s a gadfly, an independent in a society full of rules and hierarchies more solid than a mountain's striated past. The higher he goes, the fewer and fewer places he has to escape that hold, and here in the Pegasus galaxy there are no bolt holes left at all.

Even at McMurdo he could go hiking, pretending that the ice cresting high and jagged around him was some kind of companionship. That he wasn’t lonely for the kinds of places he’s always been good at finding, bars that never noticed the dog tags under his shirt, clubs that couldn’t see him struggle against the rigid set of his shoulders, loose only when he was on duty.

He didn’t know what loneliness was, then, too caught up in standing tall under his punishment.

Loneliness is knowing there are places he could go, people he wants to see who will stiffen and go silent the moment he interrupts them. Loneliness is knowing the places he’d be welcome in are the places he can’t go, the paths he can’t take and still be a mostly-respected man and leader.

Loneliness is knowing that he’s sitting in his god damned room alone with a book he can’t stand, while the rest of Atlantis sheds her burdens for at least this one day, and remembers what it is they’re all fighting for.

“You know,” a voice chirps in his ear, “I can hear you brooding _three floors away.”_

There are times when John suspects some kind of intervention, divine or technological he’s not sure. “Get out of my brain, McKay.”

“Huh.”

It’s a thoughtful exhalation and John’s stomach clenches. “What?”

“Eh? Don’t get your panties in a knot, Colonel, jeez.” Rodney swears more when he’s alone, which doesn’t explain why he sounds slightly out of breath. Probably something exciting and new with the computer they’d found off-world, the one that’s blue and bright and blinking and holding too much of Rodney’s attention.

“It’s ‘twist’, Slogan Man.”

“Whatever. I was just thinking, there’s no way being inside your head could be pleasant. Either you’re trapped in squishy, wet grey matter, or stuck thinking the same things you were, and that’d just be a tragic loss to the human race in general, our particular faction of it in particular.”

John’s stomach unclenches. The acid doesn’t go away, but Rodney’s being his version of whimsical so there’s nothing overtly wrong. Well, on his end, anyway. “Funny,” he deadpans.

“Yes, yes, I really am, I’m so grateful to have your acknowledgment of my comedic skills, not that I really require that kind of affirmation from you.”

“Is there a reason why you’re being a pain in the ass today?”

“I need a reason? Also, I’m not being a pain in your ass. Like you said before, I’m being a pain in your _brain_. Care to explain how I got so lucky?”

John growls under his breath. Too much proximity to Ronon has trained him via osmosis, and he’d scared himself badly the first couple of times he’d growled without realizing it. Now he just likes the sound, the way it vibrates his throat dry and rough every time. He likes the way it causes Ronon to grin at him, feral and proud, dreds fanning out like a mane. Rubbing his face, John thunks his head back towards the pillow. It gives too softly. “No. What do you want, McKay?”

There’s a second’s hesitation. It’s short, the kind of thing even those familiar with Rodney wouldn’t recognize as significant, missing it under the avalanche of words that pours out afterward, babbling and busy, higher pitched than before.

He’s surprised Rodney, and not in a good way.

“McKay,” he says, “McKay!”

“—idiotic version of a LARP that Henderson completely stole, no matter he claims he came up with it, I totally recognize that thief character, and _what?”_

“We’re on a private channel, right?”

There aren’t many of those in Atlantis. Rodney spent a few frantic days post Koyla and the Killer Hurricane concert to create a half dozen encrypted channels, distributed to key members of the senior staff only. They’re only useful on Atlantis, but that they exist is a boon John doesn’t ever take for granted. Telephones are things he dearly misses. Same with email that can’t be hacked in three seconds flat by over half the expedition.

“Uh.” Rodney’s actually panting now, though trying to hide it, short puffs of air that he swallows so frequently that he’s started coughing. “Yes?”

John sighs and contemplates inching back enough that he can slam his head against the wall instead of a yielding pillow. “McKay, _you_ contacted _me_ on an encrypted channel.”

“Oh, that’s right. I completely forgot, sorry.” Rodney isn’t free with his sorries. He always means them—one thing everyone knows about Rodney within moments is that he’s got too many irons burning amber and red in too many fires for him to be anything less than sincere. But that leaves Rodney vulnerable, open the way only painfully frank honesty can—the reason why so many people employ the white lies and charming, facile smiles that grease their lives. So Rodney doesn’t say ‘sorry’ all that often.

Except for a few circumstances that John’s worked out over painful trail and error. Stress makes Rodney apologize, particularly back at the beginning when he’d been his own inverted version of eager-to-please. John still hears frantic, “Sorry, sorry!” in his dreams, air growing thinner and farther away as bands of fire work deeper into his neck, iron claws piercing not just skin and muscle and blood, but bone and breath and soul.

Nervousness makes Rodney apologize a lot, but of all his ‘sorries’, those are the ones he means less. He’s not apologizing for inadvertent hurts to others; he’s castigating himself, each sorry a bramble cut across the back, leaving scars John suspects he examines only in his darkest moments, running fingers over bumps and hardened twists of his own psyche that he barely notices the rest of his life.

Worry makes Rodney apologize. Worry and a kind of selflessness that’s buried so deep that John’s only seen it a handful of times, suns rays peeking out behind billowing storm clouds, thunder and lightning a normally impenetrable screen. That’s what John is hearing now, skin pricking warm and hungry despite the heavy clouds that’ve circled Atlantis for three days now, and the motivation for Elizabeth’s hastily declared Game Day.

“Yes,” he says, sounding out each word like the nasal twist he gives each one will provide him answers, “yes, Rodney, you _did_ contact me on a private channel. Hopefully not to talk about how the inside of my head is disgusting to you.”

“I didn’t say that.” No more panting, now, just a half-hidden sigh of relief and the more familiar smug satisfaction. “I said that it wouldn’t be pleasant for someone not you stuck in there.”

“Semantics.” It’s childish, but Rodney’s instant correction makes him feel better. Why is he always five around McKay? Or maybe it’s the twelve he’s so-often accused of acting like.

“Are you accusing me of being a philosopher? Because if you are, then I won’t tell you to meet me on the east balcony, level five, in ten minutes.”

John sits up slowly, covers creasing rough and uncomfortable against his thigh. “Rodney—”

“I told you,” Rodney cuts him off, satisfaction mellowed by a kind of gentleness that should never sit right in the whip-crack of Rodney’s words and somehow always does. “I could hear you brooding like a pubescent girl three floors away. Ten minutes, Colonel.”

The line clicks off before John can demand details, leaving him mouth-half open and breathless. It’s just like Rodney to do that to him, he thinks, grumbling. Sweep in and take over, just like always, and on John’s day off, too. Of course, _Rodney’d_ had to work, because why should he allow someone else to make that one breakthrough that’ll save them all, forgetting of course that the only things Rodney’s currently working on won’t provide big, sweeping breakthroughs even on their best day. John’s not ruling out tandem inspiration, of course, which is one reason Rodney makes sure to do some of the more tedious work on a random basis. He claims it recharges his brain, and John’s witnessed him suddenly go straight, face creasing as his brain starts spitting out too many ideas for the curve of his skull to hold to say he’s wrong.

But it’s John’s _day off_. One of the very few he gets, what with his very busy rotation of away missions as _well_ as running a base as complicated as Atlantis.

By the time John struggles into jeans and a comfortable t-shirt, foregoing a shave since it’s god damned Rodney and his god damned greedy appropriation of John’s time, forcing him outside when it’s raining that disquieting, off-kilter rhythm, he’s worked up something of a head of steam.

The halls echo with the fun everyone else is having. They’re empty, or at least the one John stomps through are, but there’s a sheen to them, a rippling glow like a child’s laughter unable to be contained. It lights each of John’s steps.

“Fine,” he snaps as the pier comes into view. His voice carries, cranky and whining to his own ears, but he’s deaf to the nuances. Rodney’s back is to him, bent over to fuss with something on the silvered floor, well protected from the rain by a ...

Ten feet away, John stops.

A tarp. There’s a _tarp_ , or some sort of plastic that drapes gypsy colors all over Atlantis’ more murky hues, sun-blinding without a hint of sun to make it glow. The rain bounces off, leaving the balcony protected, while each new drop makes the patterned colors glow. It’s almost unnatural, unholy, that it’s so perfect against a sky that’s the worst kind of paper grocery-bag gray John’s ever seen.

The floor is covered with a blanket John recognizes as one of Teyla’s gifts to Rodney, a patchwork of scenes and still-images that Teyla put together herself—no one’s asked if she created the patches or just sewed them together, and she’s never told—and is one of Rodney’s most beloved possessions. He refuses to use it as the comforter it was designed for, claiming he’ll ruin it in his sleep, instead placing it over one shelf so that the image of a ZPM shines amber over his room.

Teyla always smiles when she sees it, sure and certain with knowledge she’s never shared, but clearly pleases her nonetheless.

On the blanket is a small wicker basket, the curving neck of green glass artistically displayed at the corner. The other wooden flap is also half raised, unable to settle, probably due to how full the basket it is. The scent of strawberries mixes with the ever present smell of salt and water, thicker than ever from the steady fall of rain. 

Rodney has straightened while John stared, nervously shifting his weight back and forth as he waits for some kind of reaction.

Rodney’s not very good at waiting. “Um,” he says. “Hi? You’re a little early.”

“You said ten minutes.” John’s voice is strangled, choked off and thin.

“Well, yes, I did, but you’re never on time. Well, obviously you are if there’s a _reason_ , like a mission, or someone’s lives depend on it. Then. Yes. You’re punctual. But when it’s, ah, me asking you to do something? Then you’re, um... never. Punctual.” Rodney twists his hands, bringing them behind his back so he can fidget and play with them, away from John’s too-wide eyes. He loves attention, of course, but only when he feels comfortable in his performance. Rodney is the most method actor John’s ever met, and when not in his one spectacularly confident role, he’s as suave as any awkward, callow person.

“What do you have left to do?”

Rodney tugs at the complicated knots that hang like spider webs, ghostly and gleaming, beneath the tarp overhead. “Not much. Uh, this is something that Radek’s been working on. Well, the concept. He’s about as artistically talented as I am, without a computer to help the renderings, so he’s been working with one of the botanists that sews, no idea what her name is, and they call it their portable umbrella, even if that’s a _ridiculous_ name since it’s not an umbrella and after trying to port it around, I can tell you it’s not that portable at all.”

John takes one step and then another. His feet feel leaden, heavy and block-like at the ends of his legs, and the floor is a memory his shoes don’t know the shape of. “Rodney. What did you have left to do?”

Rodney doesn’t blush. He flushes and turns red all the time, usually right before he siezes from something Pegasus-related, but he doesn’t _blush_. Still, John’s sure the shoulder-twitch and head-bob is Rodney’s equivalent of his cheeks dying a slow, pink-touched red, and it’s... strangely endearing, despite Rodney looking like some kind of demented performer of the Safety Dance. “Um. Candles?” he squeaks.

Life returns to his legs and John walks onto the balcony. The view is spectacular, even with the heavy clouds that shift formless and ephemeral beyond the multicolored safety of Rodney’s ‘umbrella’, Atlantis’s towers soaring with more grace than any of the birds John’s flown, any of birds he used to watch as a child, soaring up to places he knew he wanted to go. The drop is terrifying as he leans against the railing, shirt growing damp from a rain that’s mostly mist by now, soaking him without leaving him chilled. The drop is always terrifying, every time John takes it in.

He loves it every time, too, stomach somewhere down around his knees while adrenaline propels his mind upward.

Leaving the curved edge, John kicks off his shoes before kneeling on Rodney’s blanket, pulling out a shallow glass container that’s probably supposed to have water in it, instead filled with three different votives. He looks up at Rodney.

“They’re from _your_ stash,” Rodney snaps, fussily turning away to do something else. “Don’t make me ask why the very male military head of Atlantis has a room full of _votive candles.”_

“I’m still impressed you know what a votive is,” John says, accepting the eye roll the follows as his due. The candle holders are definitely meant to float, but John’s not going to tell Rodney that. Instead he digs out the nifty lighters they’ve appropriated from the Athosians, trying not to look at the containers carefully wrapped to mask their contents. He can smell mustard, though, and something spicy.

The candles provide just enough gold that, safe inside their circle, John can completely forget about the rain.

Rodney pulls the bottle of wine out, dazzling John as light catches the sloping curve of its shoulder, and pours them glasses. “Not Earth wine, but—”

John silences him by sipping just enough that his lips and mouth are wet with it—tart grapes and the almost-cherries of Kaldesh exploding on his tongue, warming his belly even before he swallows—then leans forward to share his bounty with Rodney, mouths warm and silkily familiar as they taste and taste until there’s no wine left for them to find.

It’s still a good few breathes before they pull away, close enough that when Rodney exhales John feels it cool and damp against his skin. “Aw, Rodney,” he teases. “Are you trying to woo me?”

Rodney does his physical version of a blush again, almost spilling his own untouched glass of wine, before glaring hatefully. “Far be it for me to bring up memories I’d really rather not, but you um. Seem to. Like this kind of thing.” The words are stretched and dragged, Rodney’s face turned away so he doesn’t have to see the reaction he’s clearly fearing—that John’s romantic endeavors are just that, endeavors for what he really wants, the obvious conclusion any male alive wants. “Um.”

John sips again, kisses again, until Rodney’s humming into his mouth the way he always does when the kisses are good, the vocalizations he can’t control no matter how often he claims to want to. John doesn’t, and usually distracts Rodney before he can do something foolish like promise to be quieter the next time. “I’ve always liked the slow path,” he says.

Rodney snorts, but he looks pleased and proud of himself—social equations are the ones Rodney stares at, scratching his head and wishing desperately for a back-of-the-book where answers can be found. Getting something right is rare enough to precious, even if he never remembers ten minutes later. “Says the man who had me up against the wall and his dick in my ass before we’d even kissed.”

He’s too mellow to frown, but thinking of that almost always makes him want to. Adrenaline-fueled encounters are hardly unusual in his line of work, but if Rodney had been less experienced—or less willing—then it wouldn’t have been an encounter either of them remembered fondly. John’s made sure it never happens again, no matter how often Rodney rolls his eyes, even while ensuring his own level of satisfaction meant he’d become something of a purveyor on the side, much to his amusement.

Elizabeth’s got a lock on the condom market, despite the medical facilities attempts to control both, so it works out pretty well. Neither of them charge much more than the promise that this _won’t_ come back to bite either of their asses.

“Still,” Rodney continues, “I suppose it makes sense. You’re that insane type that walks in the woods just to see the, I don’t know, the light make pretty, pretty pictures on the grass. Or something.” The ‘equally asinine’ isn’t spoken, but still clear as a bell.

John carefully doesn’t look at the haven of light and summer’s warmth that Rodney’s eeked out of a cool, rainy spring day, nor the way candles offer auras of paintings and knickknacks placed carefully around a room, beauty just for beauty’s sake. If Rodney’s not going to talk about, John certainly isn’t. Besides, he’s managed to identify one of the scents that’s been tantalizing him ever since he opened up their picnic basket.

“Ronon cooked?” he asks, kissing Rodney again even as he gropes a possibly-correctly-shaped bundle from the basket. Unwrapping it one-handed, he moans into Rodney’s mouth as the scent of Ronon’s not-quite-but-just-as-good-as-bacon twines tantalizing with the scent of fresh lettuce, encircling the two of them.

Rodney snorts, eloquent as always, and pulls out the rest of their lunch, humming to himself as the rain smooths into something like a rhythmic pattern, John puddled up against his side. There’ll be sex later, John’s sure, body thrumming with lazy anticipation, but for now he has exactly what he’s wanted—Rodney, free from the clutches of his labs, entertaining John with food and ambiance, with the power of his mind and the sharpened tongue of his wit, and _here_ , with him while beyond them Atlantis unwinds, finding whatever comfort works best.

It’s a good day, John thinks, trading a bite for a kiss while Rodney grumbles and tries to eat his Pegasus version of chicken satay. “You’re such a romantic,” he says, just to get Rodney going, grinning up at a sky that stays thick and heavy, covered with cotton balls stained foreboding, no longer a weight on his mood while Rodney calls him a passive-aggressive manipulator and appeals to the world at large as to why he should put up with John even a minute longer.

“Well,” John says. “I’ve got a nice dick, for starters.”


End file.
